Hi Scott – you may not remember me; I was the president of the LGBTA at the University at Buffalo, and together with Hillel of Buffalo we brought you up to speak in like 2006ish (I can’t remember the exact year). Anyway, we had Pizza and you were telling Andrea and myself that on Simchat Torah one year you and your synagogue were dancing with the Torah outside, and I guess you saw the clinic where you were diagnosed and you said that you told yourself “I’m going to dance on the spot where I was told this is the end.” I want to let you know how important those words have been to me over the years: they got me through basic training in the Israel Defense Forces when I made Aliyah, they got me through fighting to become a Non Commissioned Officer, they got me through living next to the Gaza Strip and being bombed on a near daily basis, and more recently they‘ve gotten me through the scariest year of my life: a year of neurological midiagnosises, hits and misses, doctors not listening, not being able to walk or move, to finally getting a partial diagnosis, to finally getting a full diagnosis, and being put on medication that’s making move my body easier; and I am so looking forward to “dancing on the spot where I was told this is the end.” So I want to say thank you – so much – for being you, and for sharing a sentence that has sustained me, and for sharing with all of us…and to send you love and wishes for a beautiful New Year filled with love, and happiness, and wonder.
All my love,